Title: Extra Ingredient (Nourishment: Second Helpings 12)
Author: Janet F. Caires-Lesgold
Feedback to: jfc@freeshell.org
Archive: Mailing list archives only--others please ask permission!
Category: Story, angst, Lionel POV
Spoilers: Transference, but tweaked to suit
Rating: T (for audiences of older teens or above)
Pairing: Clark/Lex established relationship, suggestions of Lionel/Lex
Summary: Just a spy in the house of love...

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 NOTE: All parts of "The Nourishment Series" and "Second Helpings", which precede this story, can be found elsewhere on this archive - Enjoy!

AUTHOR'S ADDENDUM: Surprise! I did like one episode in Season 4, but not entirely how it played out. Time to use it to my advantage...

DEDICATION: For Tiff, who forgives me when I have been replaced by a pod person.

COPYRIGHT: (C) Janet F. Caires-Lesgold, December 22, 2005, 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.

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Clark Kent is an extraordinary young man. If I hadn't realized it before, I have first-hand evidence now.

When I promised a great deal of money to that reptilian check forger, I doubted that I would ever need to make good on it, much less that his "magical transforming stone from Egypt" would produce any results. Imagine my surprise when it actually worked. I have no idea why the young Mr. Kent arrived at the penitentiary at the moment I was preparing to escape with the help of my thankless son. If everything had gone according to plan, Lex and I would have changed places, and he'd never see me again, and no one would have ever been the wiser.

The last person I expected to see after I used the hexed stone was Lex, unless I'd been looking in a mirror. Yet there he was, lying on the floor, staring up into my eyes, calling me a name that wasn't my own. All I could feel in my hand was another hand, this one small and cold compared to "mine": the stone was nowhere to be seen.

I looked at the chilled hand, finding that it belonged to that sickly husk I'd been calling a body for months. The eyes in the face weren't mine, though. They were confused, lost, and scared.

"Clark?" Lex asked me. "What did you just do?"

"I--I don't know," I stammered, partly for effect and partly out of genuine mystification. "I think I want to go home."

Lex picked himself up and dusted himself off, giving my former body a sneer. "Fine. I'll get you out of here, away from crazy old men. Goodbye, Dad."

"But, Lex--wait!" I heard my voice call weakly at our backs as we left the meeting area.

I was too busy savoring the fresh air of freedom outdoors and feeling the health of my new body to pay much attention to Lex's chatter as we walked to his car and started driving home. We stopped once for gas and a bottle of some brightly-colored soda pop that must have been a favorite of Clark's, but that I'd never sampled until Lex pushed it into my hand. It was nothing but pure sugar and artificial flavor, things forbidden to a man with advanced liver disease. It tasted wonderful.

Instead of taking me to the mansion in Smallville, Lex drove me to the Kent farm, and it suddenly sank in: I was Clark Kent, not Lionel Luthor anymore, and, while it wasn't the one I'd anticipated, I had a brand-new life ahead of me.

Before I got out of the car, he kissed me quickly and whispered, "I'll see you tomorrow. I love you."

Oh, yes, I thought. Lex and Clark are still together, despite all of my best efforts. I played along and kissed him back, returning the sentiment, which is still absolutely true, no matter what Lex may think.

Jonathan Kent, looking older and more frail than I remembered him, came out of the house before the car had disappeared down the road and started assigning me farm tasks. However, the things I was given to do required some kind of incredible strength and speed, which I was amazed to discover that my new body possessed. More than once I was scolded for brooding or dawdling, when what I was really doing was discovering and marveling at this boy's amazing abilities. Perhaps, I thought, the error I'd made in destination wasn't going to be so bad after all, at least until I could locate the stone and correct the mistake that Clark had caused. Nevertheless, while the bucolic lifestyle might be quite restful, and the superhuman talents very useful, I recognized that I would be much more suited to Lex's luxurious home and career, so the adjustment would have to be made fairly soon.

In less than an hour and a half, I'd easily completed the chores that would have taken an ordinary man most of a day, which explained how the farm could stay afloat without more employees. Jonathan clapped me on the back with some fatherly praise and sent me up to a little room in the hayloft, which must have been Clark's special hideaway.

Before I could begin to adjust my plan for regaining my empire on the outside, Martha Kent appeared at the top of the stairs with a plate of freshly-baked cookies. "Hi, honey," she addressed me so sweetly that I wished for just a moment that she'd had a reason to call me that when she'd been my assistant. "I brought you something to tide you over until dinner."

"Thanks, Mom," I said as sincerely as I could, which wasn't that difficult when I realized just how hungry I was. On impulse, when I went to take the plate from her, I gave her a grateful hug, doing my best imitation of a devoted son. It had been a long time since any kind-hearted soul had touched me, and a small thrill coursed up my spine at her embrace. Unbelievably, I felt my eyes grow hot for a moment, and some kind of energy shot out of them before I could slam them shut.

As she released me, just past her shoulder I could see that the wick of a tall pillar candle sitting on a shelf had been ignited by the charge from my eyes. Her gaze followed mine, and she swatted me playfully on the arm. "Hey! No thinking about Lex while you hug your mother! It's rude!" she laughed gaily before blowing out the flame. "You'd better finish your trigonometry homework if you want to go play pool with Lex tomorrow. You'll be down at 5:30 to wash your hands for dinner, won't you?"

"Sure, Mom," I answered, checking my watch and hoping she didn't notice that I lifted the wrong arm first. "I'll be right on time!"

"Sure you will," she drawled, disappearing down the stairs and nodding her head skeptically.

It was heaven to be left peacefully alone without any kind of supervision or company, so I paced around the loft awhile just enjoying it. I thought about Martha's reminder that I was scheduled to visit Lex the next day. Luckily for me, I had escaped on a Friday and didn't have to worry about faking my way through any high school classes, at least not for two days.

But being a welcome guest at the mansion would definitely make it easier to prepare for my eventual reacquisition of all that belonged to me, including Lex himself. I knew where the business computers were housed, and might still have password access to the accounts, provided I had hidden them well enough.

I had been confident that I could masquerade as Lex without anyone knowing the difference, but pretending to be Clark, for however short a period, would be a bit more challenging. It was more than likely that Clark had palmed the charged rock after our transformation, and would probably have kept it in hopes of returning to normal someday. Getting it back from him and completing my planned transition (while simple, given my unfair physical advantage) would be a task for the next week, as I was in no great hurry to set foot on prison grounds again. For the weekend, I needed to make sure that Lex believed I was Clark.

That made me wonder just what Lex would expect from Clark. Would Clark treat his visit as an excuse to have sex with my son? Would Lex find it suspicious if Clark shrugged aside his advances? How far was I willing to go to maintain my ruse?

However, were the shoe on the other foot, so to speak, how fortunate I would be to play with this prime specimen! A full-length mirror stood opposite an old couch, helping transform the crude wooden room into a cozy nook. By sitting in the more-worn spot on the leather cushions, I could see "myself" reflected quite easily. So very pretty... The sheer amount of vitality in Clark's body compared to my own discarded one was nearly comical, so potent that I felt a familiar stirring in my loins for the first time in months.

Never one to turn down a delicious opportunity, I leaned back on the couch and opened the fly of my pants. I was impressed. Not only is he inhumanly beautiful and gifted, he is almost ridiculously well-hung. At last, I understood Lex's reluctance to give him up.

With one huge hand, I availed myself of the erect member and took my pleasure slowly, relishing every stroke as well as the thought of being left alone to enjoy it. Completion was thrilling, wrenching a monstrous groan from my throat as I befouled the bunch of tissues I held in my other hand. For a moment, I felt as sheepish as a teenage boy at my enthusiasm, but as soon as I decided that my vocalization had either been undetected or ignored by the other family members, I allowed myself a moment of luxuriating in sexual afterglow. Lex is a lucky, lucky man...

What followed was an uneventful dinner and an evening of reading a murder mystery I found on a shelf before going to bed in Clark's tiny room. Obviously, his parents were used to his superhuman talents, so we all just acted like everything was normal. I hoped I could retrieve my fortune soon enough, but this plain domesticity with an overlay of the simply impossible might be comfortable enough, at least in the short term. For the time being, I decided to look on the experience as a brief vacation.

The next morning I once again did a small regiment's tasks of farm maintenance, reduced in scope due to the approaching wintry weather, then was excused after lunch to visit Lex.

Security was a micron tighter at the mansion than it had been when I had lived there, but the people on duty recognized me as the paramour of the master and let me in without question. In fact, they even made a point of advising me that Lex had been detained at the plant and would return in about an hour, so I should make myself at home while I waited for him. If there's one thing I felt in that house, it was "at home".

I hunted around for the computer where I'd stashed my private files, and found that it had been tucked in a corner of the library near a few others that were nearly identical, unless one knew where to look. Simple tasks such as booting it up, opening a folder, and changing a password would soon allow me to be able to rule the world once again.

In the few seconds that I had to wait for the machine to respond to commands, a dead girl walked into the room. Perhaps she had been revealed to be alive at my trial, but this was merely a temporary arrangement. "Hey, Clark," Chloe addressed me while taking a seat in front of another terminal as if the world hadn't just turned upside-down.

My mind raced to supply pointless conversation so she wouldn't suspect anything amiss. Was she now living here, presumably for her protection? I could only assume so. It was time to act as if she weren't being protected from me. "Hello, Chloe," I answered like her peer with some difficulty.

"You gonna have that write-up on the game for Tuesday's Torch?" she asked, not even looking up from her notebook.

"Sure," I replied, not bothering to act cowed. "Monday soon enough for you?"

"Perfect!" she chirped, glancing over to me, then back to her computer screen. Quietly, she went about her work, so I did the same.

I had to run a search for the file I wanted, which led to my having a few empty moments. The thought of pretending to flirt with her crossed my mind, but at that very moment, the file I'd been trying to locate opened on my computer screen. I keyed in my username, password, account number, and code word. The browser shook itself a little and eventually spat out my balance: $6.66.

Gone. The billions of dollars I'd tucked away from business and other sources had been completely erased from my secret account, leaving only Lex's idea of a joke behind.

Covering my electronic tracks again, I closed out of the accounting software and browser, then shoved my chair back with far too much force, sending it crashing into a pillar, and strode off to Lex's office. Chloe called, "Clark?" after me with some concern in her voice, but wisely did not follow me out the door.

Unfortunately, my son was not at his desk when I burst into his inner sanctum. I gathered my wits for a moment, then turned to the bar in the corner of the room for something to calm my ire. The scotch had recently been refilled, so I grabbed the decanter and a glass and sat down on a leather sofa to wait.

The boy's constitution was more impervious than I had anticipated, as well, for the liquor left no pleasant warmth, no burn, not even a slight hum in my head. I might as well have been drinking room-temperature tea. Just to make sure, I polished off the entire decanter.

Lex walked in almost exactly sixty minutes after I had arrived at the house. Waving the cut crystal vessel at him, I announced, "You're out of scotch."

He approached me with a quizzical but strangely calm expression. "Awfully early in the day for you to be drinking so heavily, isn't it?"

"I've had a rough morning," I admitted, remembering before it was too late to maintain my pretense of being Clark.

"Mmmmmm, poor baby," he replied, almost mockingly, as he leaned down and kissed me. I sensed a slight hesitation in him, but he seemed to be buying my act. "Let me ring for some refreshments--I've got to check a few figures before we start our game." He rubbed my shoulder comfortingly, then went to the desk and picked up the phone. "Coffee with sugar for two in my office. Thank you." Waving nonchalantly in my direction, he assured me, "This will only take a little while. Don't go anywhere." At once, he sat down and started keying things into his computer.

I stood up from the comfortable sofa, still unused to the ease with which I straightened, and stretched to my impressive full height. Pretending to be curious, I wandered up to a small sculpture mounted on the wall and studied it intently. It was a grouping of some sort of mouthblown and gilded glass cherubs that Lex must have acquired recently, because I didn't recognize it. A servant brought in a coffeepot and cups on a tray to the bar, so I went to retrieve one for each of us, then brought the beverages back to Lex's desk.

"That's interesting," he murmured not quite to me.

"What's that?" I asked, sipping the hot liquid gingerly.

"Some files have been accessed that only my father and I have the passwords to open."

My practice at suppressing spit-takes fortunately had traveled with me to this new body. The only thing that changed on my face was a single raised eyebrow. "What kind of files?"

"Oh, you know--income, benefits, interest, current balance--that kind of thing."

"Wow... Do you think he was able to do that from prison?"

"Sort of..." he trailed off, then bent to open a bottom drawer with a small key. With a minimum of ceremony, he removed the contents of the padded interior and set it on the desk. I was surprised to note that it was a fist-sized chunk of bright green meteor rock that practically glowed in the sunny room.

To my astonishment, I began feeling horribly ill the moment he set the stone on the tabletop. My bowels cramped, my stomach rolled, and my head pounded, diminishing my vision to a narrow tunnel.

"Tell me, Clark--just what were you doing at the prison when I went to visit my father yesterday?"

"Nothing!" I coughed out, praying I wouldn't vomit in front of him. "I was afraid he was going to do something to hurt you!"

"Are you sure you're not working with my father to try to get his money?" He lifted the gemstone again and waved it at me, causing me to fall hard on my knees.

"No, no! Of course not! What are you doing to me?"

He smiled with a dark glint in his eye. "You know what these things do to you better than I do, Clark, that is, if you are indeed Clark."

"Why, who else would I be?" I maintained innocently as best I could reeling from nausea on the floor.

"I have my suspicions," he drawled slowly, then rose from his chair and carried the rock closer to me. I pitched to the side with a wave of agony and was soon flat on my back, with the toe of a fine Italian shoe pressed carefully on my windpipe. "...Dad," he added pointedly.

"How... how could you tell?" I choked.

Lifting his foot from my throat, he shifted to crouch beside my head, bringing the rock ever-nearer to my nose. "Well, you kiss like my dad. That was something that I'd noticed even yesterday, though it took me awhile to figure out exactly how it was different. Also, Clark can't stand scotch. I tried to educate him about it a year ago and got nowhere fast. Strike two. And those Chihuly glass cherubs over there that fascinated you so much?" He gestured back over my head toward the sculpture with his free hand. "Clark loathes them."

He moved again, this time sitting cross-legged on the floor, from which position he balanced the stone neatly on my breastbone. I tested to see if I could have brushed it away, but something about that damned rock made it impossible for me even to lift a hand. I was Lex's prisoner.

Lex pulled a cellphone out of his pocket and punched a few buttons. "Lex Luthor," he began to the person on the other end, "calling to speak to my father. Yes, it's an emergency. Thank you." He had to wait for a few minutes until he was connected, during which he said nothing but glared at me steadily.

Eventually his expression changed when he apparently heard my old voice on the line. "Dad, Clark's here with me--I know everything," he said abruptly, probably in case anyone else was listening. "Are you all right?" His eyes closed, and he bit his lip, but otherwise his voice conveyed complete composure. "Just to confirm one thing, what did your father tell me the first time we met?" Inhaling sharply, his next words came out in a rush. "We'll be there right away. I am so sorry this happened. I'll take care of it. Don't worry, okay?"

He pocketed the phone again and dragged me to my feet by one arm. "Handy little magic spell you pulled there, Dad. You're going to help me fix this. Come along..."

We hurried to the garage and picked out his fastest car. I felt so dreadful that I could do nothing but tag along weakly. Before we left the building, I even lost my lunch unceremoniously on the concrete floor. Lex had found a metal box to house the rock and, leaving the lid off, placed it on the dashboard where it gleamed ominously while we made the three-hour drive to Metropolis in an hour.

My son presented his professional demeanor when he requested a private meeting with his favorite convict, and our wait was remarkably short, probably due to his status more than mine. We were ushered to a walled room, where we were soon joined by an old, sickly man in an orange jumpsuit whose eyes grew huge when he spotted the green rock in its box on the table. Once we were closed inside, Lex coaxed me to reveal how the transformation had been accomplished, so I told him reluctantly about the spell that had been given to me. The magic rock hummed when it was pulled out of the jumpsuit's pocket, and my hand was clasped once again as lights flashed, though I couldn't tell if they were real or just behind my eyelids.

When my vision cleared, my stomach had settled and my headache was gone. However, I was dressed again in prison orange, and every ounce of strength I had felt just hours before had vanished. Clark, still looking green around the gills, towered over me, but wrested control of the magic rock away from me and ground it under his heel against the concrete floor.

Slamming the lid on the box containing the meteor rock, Lex assured Clark, "This was the only method I could think of to get him to agree to help me. I'm sorry I had to use it this way."

"I understand," Clark replied with an angry glance at me. "Can we go home now?"

"Sure, baby," Lex cooed at him, then rang for penitentiary personnel to lock me back in my cell. As I was cuffed and escorted out the door, he made sure to call after me, the fury in his voice detectable only to the trained ear, "I'll see you next month, Dad. Have a nice Thanksgiving."

Clark Kent is certainly an extraordinary young man. Had I not attempted to escape prison through supernatural means, I would not have learned just how extraordinary he is, or many other facts that may become useful later...

THE END