Another Such Victory (13K) - Rescue, care, cleanup, and nobody dies. August 2002

Below are snippets. I keep these because churning out snippets keeps me active, and because I can play at tiny things and not feel overwhelmed with the responsibility of canon and choices and blah blah dramacakes. Most of them are, frankly, exercises.

"I don't know how to tell you this." Chloe wandered up to the back fence, smiling sardonically. "You're wearing blue tights."

"It was all I could find that's aerodynamic. They're my leggings, for jogging in the winter." He turned and ran again, still using his body more like a kite than like a speeding bullet.

Chloe waited till he landed, again, a panting heap on the grass. "You might look into full-body suits, like downhill skiers wear. Because tights with Keds and a flapping KISS t-shirt do not say hero to me."

"I need something loose, for balance. Like the big tail fin on a 737." He stood, spreading his arms, a soaring gull still testing the air.

"And a mask," she said. Then added, slowly, "If you stayed in Smallville."

He said nothing, only turned to practice his running leap. This time he caught the trick and glided, arms out, to hover above her head, grinning. She didn't grin back.

"You'll need a catchy name," Chloe told him, "for when you're in the news."

Clark flew away, low under the trees, tagging the naked birch branches he sped past. Chloe watched him, frowning, as he went.

3/02

It was raining in the city, low, grumbling ache of cold. His office was so high up he didn't see rain, only wisps of mist and impenetrable gray. You would have had to fly up close to be visible in his windows. He turned around to the woman who was waiting for him.

"You know why I keep you around, Chloe?" His voice was a little too loud, echoed a little too far in the room.

She cocked her head. "Because I know where all the bodies are buried?"

"No," he said, a long hollow tube of a syllable. He sat and put his hands on the desk and she hugged her clipboard to her, waiting for him to continue. He didn't.

"Why?"

"You're -- good to me." She looked at his face and came around that vast expanse of empty neomodernist desk to lean on his wingchair.

"I try, bossman."

"And you have warm hands." She chuckled. "And you remember," he muttered. If she hadn't been close she wouldn't have heard it at all.

"Yeah," she whispered back to him, and rested her hand on his bald skull.

4/02

~~

"Hey," said Clark, in his breathless Clarky way. He was standing in the doorway, suddenly, where he hadn't been a moment before. Lex had been checking. "What are you reading?"

"Faust." The word lent itself to an existential scowl. Lex laughed instead, and snapped shut the slim volume. He dropped it on the hearth, in front of the lit fireplace.

Clark shuffled off his backpack and flopped, all long bent limbs, onto the leather couch. "Is it funny?"

"No." Lex watched that brow furrow itself with near-comical seriousness. He added, "Well, there's a subplot about a flying homunculus in a jar."

"What's a homunculus?" asked Clark, muttering through the fleece as he pulled his sweatshirt over his head.

"It's --" Lex savored the pause and Clark's attention before finishing, "-- it's an archaic word for semen."

Clark, of course, blushed brighter than the flames on the hearth, awkward, eliciting squawks from the couch as he shifted. "Oh," he choked out.

"It symbolizes science being separated from life and nature, isolated, trapped under glass, not fully realized. The homunculus ends up bashing his jar against the Venus de Milo, in a barely disguised orgasmic joining, so he can be reborn as a human."

Clark fumbled with his fingers, silly, clumsy. "Sounds interesting."

"You don't seem convinced," chuckled Lex.

"All right." He conceded, half-grinning. "It sounds like English class. What happens in the story?"

Lex gave a shrug. "This Faust. He's a scientist -- an alchemist -- trying to discover the laws of nature and philosophy. Needless to say, he's unhappy. He makes a bet with the Devil. If he ever feels good, he goes to Hell. As long as he's miserable, he's safe."

Clark stretched his arms along the back of the couch, negligent and sinuous. "Hell, for one good day?"

"For one moment, Clark." Lex hunched forward, rapt, grabbing Clark's wrist. "One moment of contentment so perfect he wishes it to last forever. He would trade his soul, for that." He ran out of words and sat, heart racing, the tendons twitching under his thumb.

The fire rolled and quavered. The air was hot enough to sweat in, and dry enough to glue tongues to the roofs of mouths. They sat hypnotizing each other, exhaling in each other's faces. Lex didn't let go and Clark didn't pull his hand away.

He whispered, "Would you do that, Clark? Would you invite damnation in exchange for a moment, or a day, or a year, of happiness?" His question made Clark blink, and the intensity unraveled, a slow avalanche as Clark looked away to think. He sat up straighter, gaining literal distance. Lex watched the thunderstorm of cogitations write themselves on that blank forehead, and withdrew. "It won't be on the final exam," he said sourly.

"No, I guess I wouldn't," said Clark at last, frowning to himself. He rotated his wrist inside Lex's grip, gently, but with enough power that Lex let go. They sat side by side, each with his hands clasped in his own lap. After a moment, Clark looked up, all questing earnestness, and asked, "Would you?"

Sucking on his teeth, Lex regarded him for a long time before answering. "Mephistopheles can't give me happiness," he said, and stood to fetch himself a drink.

4/02