2002-06-22 - 10:52 p.m.
I don't really like this enoughto work it up into a finished story, but here's a Smallville snip...
It was Clark's turn to check the eggplants. Clark's father had experimentally planted some in the greenhouse, to see if they would grow in the Kansas heat. And they had, sort of. They were perfect and rounded and purple, but small. Little mini-eggplants, just big enough to sit in the palm of Clark's hand.
Their glossy purple colour made Clark think of Lex, and the shirts he always wore. He wondered if that was normal, the way everything these days made him think of Lex.
The eggplants made him think of Lex. The crows taking off from the fields made him think of Lex, their wings like the long black suit-jackets he wore sometimes, streaming out behind him as he strode down Main Street. His own speed makes him think of Lex now too, the way he floors his cars, races around corners, always pushing at the edges of what is possible. Even the old black-and-white horror movie that he and Pete and Chloe had rented the other night made him think of Lex, with its rambling old gothic mansion, full of silence and secrets.
It's funny that secrets make him think of Lex, since he's the one, after all, with the big secret. But there's something about the tight control of Lex's surface makes Clark think, maybe too often, about what might be underneath it...
When Lex takes off his suit-jackets, he's surprisingly thin. Oh, strong enough - and Clark can tell that he works at it. But his torso and hips are lean and narrow, and the rich fabric of the purple shirts just makes them look more so, makes him look both whip-like and also, somehow, fragile.
Sometimes it makes Clark want to bundle Lex back into his jackets, button them firmly around him, hide that fragility. Want to smooth the jackets across his shoulders and down his lean hard back, smooth and soothe him and assure him that he will protect whatever there is in him that might need protecting.
And he *knows* that that's not normal, thinking that way. Knows too that Lex would probably be horrified if he realised that Clark was having these thoughts.
But the knowledge doesn't stop the thoughts. Doesn't stop him from imagining what it would be like to get with Lex into his too-fast car and drive somewhere far away from both their lives, to pull him into the back seat and draw him into his arms, black jacket and purple shirt and all.
"Clark?" says his father from behind him in the greenhouse. "Is there something I should know about you and that eggplant?" There's laughter in his voice. "You've been fondling it for a good five minutes."
Clark blushes. "Sorry, Dad, I was just thinking about... something else."
"Clearly," says his Dad, still laughing, "but we need to get on with this. You can spend some quality time with Ms. Eggplant later."
They finish the chores. But the thoughts stay with him. The rounded purple shape of the eggplant in his palm. Lex's thinness beneath his clothes.
Maybe tonight he'd go over to the mansion himself, see if Lex would let him in on some of its secrets...
