Lord of the Flies

by Lanning Cook

"Why are you bleeding?" Lex's voice sounds thin to his ears, barely a shade more robust than the corn leaves shimmering like razor blades in the moonlight. He cranes his neck to look up at the figure tied on the stake.

Lionel bares his white teeth in a grin, wriggling against the bonds that hold his arms back, twisting in his Armani suit as if he is a serpent about to shed its skin. "What are you doing here?"

Lex shrugs.

"Aren't you afraid of me?"

Lex laughs, but the sound falls dead to earth and makes the corn grow higher. "No. You're just a scarecrow."

"And you," Lionel hisses, "are an ignorant boy. Help me down."

Lex backs away warily. "Why?"

"You need help. You need my help."

Lex circles the stake slowly. "Why are you bleeding?" A warm spring rain of blood is sprinkling the dry earth around the stake. "You're bleeding a lot, Dad."

"There isn't anyone else to help you. Only me."

"You're wrong," Lex retorts with certainty to Lionel's bleeding suit.

"He won't stay with you."

"He will."

"Not when he sees you. When he really sees you--"

"Shut up." Lex kicks the stake. Blood spatters on his white suit.

"--he'll leave you to rot. He's just like everyone else, Lex. Everyone but me."

"He won't," Lex says, trying to be loud, but the corn swallows his voice.

"Let him see you, then."

Lex comes full circle to stand before Lionel, silent.

Lionel laughs, and the corn shivers. "You won't, will you? You'll continue to savor your little fairy tale – until that inevitable moment when he sees you for what you really are. That moment when he can't stand to look at you anymore."

Lex says nothing, listening to the shivering corn, the hiss of the breeze and the barely discernable chirping of crickets.

Lionel smiles, but there's blood on his white teeth now. "I know you, Lex. We're family. We're close."

"We've never been close."

"We've never been closer."

"Why are you bleeding?" Lex watches the blackened sunflowers rising from the bloody earth, lifting their shriveled faces to the red moon.

"You'll bleed, too, when the time comes," Lionel rasps.

"I won't," Lex whispers.

"Because I'm part of you. You know that, don't you?"

"The part that loses."

"Don't be absurd. You'll never lose me. You'll take me wherever you go."

Lex turned away, only to find an impenetrable forest of quivering, bladed stalks in his path.

"Imagine thinking that I'm something you could kill."

"Let me go."

"Imagine."

Lex threw himself forward, gasping as the blades sunk into his chest. "Let me go!"

"Lex."

Lex shoved wildly at the arm pinioned about his shoulders, struggling for breath. The knives were digging deep, and he couldn't find the strength to break away.

"Lex, it's me."

Lex went still for moment, struggling to recognize the voice. He started flailing again the moment he felt something hard touch his face.

"It's okay, it's okay!" The voice was pure panic, and the hard thing was yanked away. "Lex. Wake up. It's me."

Lex felt his upper body being lifted, something warm and solid slipping behind him, supporting him, curling around him. His head fell back on someone's shoulder.

"Clark?" His voice sounded like someone had poured gravel down his throat.

"Yeah. Right here." A cool hand rested on his forehead. "I think your fever is breaking."

"Fever," Lex repeated stupidly. He forced his eyes open and took a hard look at Clark's darkened bedroom, struggling to orient himself. It didn't take long. The place had become impossibly familiar and comforting to him in the past few days. It was a boy's room, a room unlike any he'd ever had, small and crowded and messy and warm, surrounding Clark's ridiculously small twin bed like a cocoon. He never wanted to leave it. He never wanted to so much as think about leaving it. "Clark? You okay?"

Clark bent over his shoulder to look into Lex's face with a reassuring smile. He was tousled, hollow-eyed and exhausted – that's what happened when you were up all night two nights in a row with the houseguest from hell, whatever planet you were from – but he'd never looked more beautiful. Lex relaxed against him, drinking him in.

"Yeah. Nightmare?"

Lex nodded, feeling no inclination whatsoever to elaborate.

"How does your chest feel?"

"Hurts," Lex admitted frankly, knowing better now than to prevaricate.

Clark sighed. "If you'd just told us--"

"Thought it was cracked ribs."

"God, Lex. You could have--"

"It's pneumonia, Clark, not Ebola." Lex's throat closed in an excruciating fit of coughing, and Clark hastily placed the oxygen mask over Lex's nose and mouth.

Lex clutched Clark's arm until the spasm passed, absurdly grateful that Toby had ignored his protests over the damn oxygen tank. Clark pulled the covers up around them both, cradling Lex against his chest, between his legs. "Don't talk anymore. Breathe."

Lex took a few more cautious breaths, then pushed the mask away. "Phone."

Clark's eyes widened. "Are you kidding?"

Lex tried to sit up, with little success. "Phone!"

"Okay, okay." Clark snatched the cell phone from the nightstand and handed it to him. "You want me to go?"

Lex seized Clark's wrist with his other hand, listening to the ringing on the other end. "No." He leaned back against Clark, curling into his warmth, willing Eli to answer. On the sixth ring, the call was answered with a curse.

"Withdraw the contract," Lex rasped.

Silence.

"You're certain?" Eli's voice dropped to a murmur.

"It hasn't been accepted already, has it?" Lex closed his eyes, clutching the phone tightly.

Lex let go a breath that devolved into a brittle cough. "Forget I mentioned it."

"It is forgotten." Eli's voice became gentle. "It is a good choice, Alexander. Family blood leaves a stain that cannot be washed away."

A sharp intake of breath made Lex look up to see Clark staring at him, white-faced. "No. It can't."

Eli broke the connection, and Lex handed the phone back to Clark. "Eli's comp--"

"What changed your mind?" Clark cut in harshly.

"I keep forgetting about those ears," Lex lied, closing his eyes, waiting for the shove.

"What changed your mind?" Clark was bending down towards him now, less harsh, more insistent.

"You did," Lex whispered, still waiting.

Silence.

"How?" Clark was whispering, too.

"Does that matter?"

"Yeah. I need to know how to do it next time."

Humor was creeping into that voice, and Lex forced himself to open his eyes, to look into Clark's face. "Next time?"

"Uh-huh." Clark smiled, and gave him a resigned little shrug the made Lex's throat ache.

Lex studied him for a few seconds, trying to breathe without wheezing. "What do you see, Clark?"

Clark sighed. "What, right now?"

"Yes."

Clark's eyes narrowed. "I see the fillings in your teeth. And all that crud in your lungs."

"Clark."

"And a lot of hairline fractures. What is it with you and getting beat up?"

"Clark."

Clark's teasing grin softened into a rueful smile. "Just you. Geez, Lex. What else?"

"I want you to see me." Lex heard his voice thicken and break. "I want you to really see me."

For a few agonizing heartbeats, Clark was all silence and searching blue eyes. "I see you," he said finally, steadily. "You're not losing me that easy, Lex."

Lex felt something in his chest, something that had nothing to do with congested lungs, give way as he eased his head back onto Clark's shoulder. "There's more."

"Yeah." Clark's hand rested on Lex's forehead. "I figured there would be. It doesn't matter."

"I want you to see all of it."

"Okay. But you're still not losing me."

Lex turned the words over in his mind for a moment, letting his eyes drift shut. "You do know--" He cut himself off.

"What?" Clark murmured.

"That you're the only thing that's keeping me from losing my mind," Lex whispered, hating the weakness, ignoring the hate.

"You're not losing your mind." Clark tilted his head close to Lex's; Lex could feel his breath against his ear.

"You haven't seen my nightmares," Lex muttered, suddenly and excruciatingly aware of Clark's body against his own.

"You're not crazy, Lex." Clark was quiet and unshakably emphatic. "Whatever your nightmares are. And after what you've been through, that says something about you."

"Too close, Clark. I've never… I've done some things. But I've never killed before. It shouldn't have been so…effortless."

"Sure it should. Killing is easy."

Lex's eyes snapped open. "What?"

"It's easy. If you're mad enough, or scared enough, and have power enough to do it, then it's the easiest thing in the world."

His stomach turning over, Lex craned his neck to get a look at Clark's face, but Clark was staring into the dark. "Clark, what--"

"Until you've done it. Or come so close that you might as well have done it. Then it's not easy. Then you're scared all the time that it'll happen again. At least I am." Clark lowered his head and looked into Lex's eyes. "I nearly killed Phelan, you know."

Lex stared up at Clark's white face, shocked into silence, shocked by Clark, for God's sake.

"I wanted to kill him. He was hurting everyone I love. He was trying to make me hurt people, too. He was taking my life away from me." Clark paused, his eyes far away, dark, glinting. Like razorblades in moonlight. "Too close, Lex."

"Are you all right?" Lex whispered, consumed with sudden, boundless hatred for the man who had put that look in Clark's eyes.

Clark blinked the glint away. "You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

Lex curled his fingers around Clark's arm, nodding.

Clark let out a gust of air and smiled, leaning closer. "You keep me from going crazy, too, Lex."

Clark touched his forehead to Lex's, and Lex pinched his eyes shut, fighting the overwhelming desire to kiss that sweet mouth until the gentleness returned to Clark's eyes.

"Are sanity checks standard operating procedure for best friends, Clark?" Lex tried to steady his voice.

"They are for us," Clark returned wryly.

"I don't think I have all the nuances of this concept nailed down."

"I think you're doing just fine."

"Have you ever read Moby Dick?"

Clark pulled away to stare at him. "Moby Dick?"

Lex opened his eyes and drew a steadying breath of relief. "Yeah. You know. Boat gets whale. Boat loses whale. Boat gets whale back. Whale eats boat."

Clark gave him one long look and started groping among the bottles on the nightstand.

"There's a scene where this pack of sharks are ripping into a whale carcass that's lashed to the side of the Pequod. And the ship's cook scolds them about their table manners. You ever read that?"

"Put those in your mouth," Clark said firmly, handing Lex a couple of Tylenol and one of Toby's godawful horsepill antibiotics.

"It's a great scene. You know what he says to them?"

"No idea." Clark handed him a glass of water. "Swallow."

Lex threw back the pills and greedily slurped the water down. "He says, 'You be sharks, certain. But if you govern the shark in you, why then you be angel.'"

Clark froze, his fingers locked around Lex's glass and his eyes locked on Lex's face.

Lex smiled at him. "' For what is an angel but a shark well-governed?'"

"Is that what we are?" Clark whispered. "Sharks?"

"Angels." Lex grinned.

Clark's drawn face relaxed into a little smile. "With teeth," he said drily.

"With teeth," allowed Lex, closing his eyes again. He fell silent for a second, settling back against Clark, letting Clark adjust their angle so he could breathe easier. Clark always got it right. He let the quiet fall for a couple minutes. "Clark. Is this…being close?"

Clark leaned his head against Lex's. "Yeah," he said gently. "This is close, Lex."

Lex laughed quietly. "Poor bastard," he murmured. "Poor, bleeding bastard. He doesn't have a clue."

End

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