Twist Upside-down

by

Kelsey

Disclaimer: SV and Superman belong to so many people I'm not going to list them all here, okay? Just be assured they don't belong to me.

Author's Note: It's been months, again! I'm so bad at this. I start things and then never finish them. But here it is, the next installment to our story, which I will make every endeavor to finish. Someday.

Summary: When a deadly illness befalls Lex, Clark will stand at his side. But what will the effect be upon their relationship with each other and the rest of their loved ones? Clex.

Rating: PG-13 for now. If it goes up, I'll note it here.

Chapter Eleven - Bored

Used to waking early, it wasn't a huge shock to Clark's system when his alarm went off at five in the morning on Saturday. Granted, he did roll over and hit it repeatedly, cursing himself while he was at it, but he did wake up fairly quickly.

Stumbling down the stairs required a little more alertness than he possessed, apparently, however, and he banged the wall with an invulnerable elbow as he stepped off the bottom stair. Jonathan Kent, sitting at the table and drinking coffee, looked up in surprise. "Clark? What are you doing up this early?"

The teenager smiled as brightly as he could manage this time of morning. "I'm going to see Lex, later. I can finish my chores by ten." He hoped the false confidence he was projecting would help, not hurt, his plan.

His father frowned, but nodded reluctantly. Clark could see the influence of his mother behind this gesture, and made a mental note to thank her later. "Okay."

"Thanks." Clark gave a genuine bright smile this time, and grabbed a piece of bread, toasting it with his heat vision as he moved out of the door. Jonathan just watched him go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At ten o'clock, Clark's chores were finished, just as he had promised. Shoving his homework into his backpack, he hesitated only briefly before adding a clean shirt and pair of underwear. Somehow, he thought his parents might be less argumentative about him staying overnight at the hospital if they didn't learn about it until he was already there.

Lex was a awake and, unsurprisingly, tapping out a memo of some kind on his laptop when Clark arrived. He looked up and gave Clark 'his' smile-- the one intended only for his boyfriend's eyes-- but went back to work without otherwise acknowledging him. Clark knew better than to interrupt. Instead, he sat down on the side of the bed and pulled out his math homework and new calculator, and went to work.

It was forty-five minutes later before Lex spoke, and Clark was almost finished with his math. "Sorry about that, Clark."

The teenager looked up from what he was doing, flashed a bright smile and shook his head. "Don't worry about it." He twisted his head to get a look at the laptop screen. "What were you doing, anyway?"

Lex sighed. "Typing up a response to Gabe's performance report. It was rather long and boring, but you're welcome to read it, if you want."

Clark made a face and shook his head. "I think I'll leave the complicated running-a-business thing to you, thank you very much." A frown flashed across his face. "Unless you want to take me up on my offer."

Lex shook his head. "Sorry. I think I'd go crazy without anything to do, anyway. It's just paperwork, I can handle it."

Reluctantly, Clark nodded. "Okay. But it still stands, whenever."

Lex smiled at the incorrigibility of his boyfriend, and shook his head a little. "You just can't give up, can you?"

Clark flashed the same heart-stopping grin he usually had, and shook his head firmly. "Nope."

Reaching out, Lex wrapped an arm around his lover's neck and pulled him down to the bed. Leaning over, he kissed the top of Clark's head, then allowed the dark-haired teen to sit up and kiss him for real.

The strong taste of mint greeted him, but under it, he could taste a sour flavor that marred the perfection of Lex's mouth, and Clark pulled away as he sensed this, his eyes dark with suspicion. "Are you okay?" He asked.

Lex's forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. "Why would you think I wasn't?"

"You taste funny."

"Shit. You can taste that?"

Clark nodded. "You can't?"

Lex shook his head. "All I can taste is mint. Clears the flavor of vomit fairly well, I might say."

Clark wanted to ask more questions, but Lex had clammed up, and if he pressed further the young Luthor would retreat into his shell far enough that he would be hard-pressed to get him back out today. "Okay."

"Do anything interesting since I talked to you?" The billionaire asked lightly.

Clark groaned, and obligingly launched into the tale of yesterday's episode of high school boredom. "It was hell. Trig doesn't make any sense at all, and everything else is boring!"

Lex got a strange expression on his face. "Do you ever think of doing anything other than Smallville public school?"

"What, like private school? We couldn't afford it, and my parents would never let you pay."

The billionaire shook his head. "No, not like private school. Like, independent study, or correspondence school, or something where you could learn about things that actually interest you."

Clark shrugged. "I am interested. In the Torch, and writing."

"Yes, but am I correct in assuming that, generally, school is boring for you?"

"Yeah."

"You really should look into it. Or, you could just look into taking harder classes."

Clark groaned. "Trig is hard enough. I think more challenging classes might kill me."

Lex smiled. "Think of it this way: are you ever bored in trig?"

He took a moment to think about that, but then Clark shook his head slowly. "No. I guess I'm not."

"Well, then, you could take harder classes, and you wouldn't be so bored."

The teenager nodded slowly again. "Thanks, Lex. I'll think about it."

He grinned, a real, honest grin that Clark didn't see very often, and nodded. "You do that. You're too smart for Smallville public school."

Clark groaned, both amused and exasperated. "Are we going to have that argument again, Lex?" He asked, only half-joking.

Lex shook his head, smirking. "Nope. I'm too smart to get into an argument with my only visitor first thing on the weekend."

Clark returned the evil smirk. "Yeah. You get me too upset and I might disappear." A flash of something went through Lex's eyes, almost to quick to recognize, but he understood and instantly wished he'd kept his mouth shut. "I'm not going anywhere, Lex, you know that, right?"

Lex shrugged. "I know." He didn't sound horribly sure. Though it was hard to tell what Lex was thinking, at the best of times, and now he was more closed off than usual.

"I'm going to be here, every moment of every day that I'm not sitting behind a desk or doing chores, and I'm going to make you so tired of my company that you'll wish I would go away!" Clark made his statement humorously, but with a kind of sincerity beneath it that he hoped Lex understood.

The billionaire nodded, and though Clark couldn't tell if he believed him, there was little more he could say, so he changed the subject. "You bored?"

Lex nodded, with more energy than Clark had seen him devote to anything yet that day. "Yes," he responded emphatically.

Clark laughed a little. "Want to go out to the 'fun room'?" The caption marks around the term were obvious.

Pale shoulder shrugged, and Lex looked at his watch. "There'll be people in it."

Clark tried hard not to roll his eyes. "Yes, well, yeah, there probably will."

"Are you bored?" Lex looked totally indifferent, but Clark knew the answer would matter to him, so he paused a moment, before he nodded slowly.

"Honestly? Yeah, a little."

A slow nod, then Lex closed out the window on the laptop and put it aside. "Okay. Want to brush up your chess skills?"

Clark smirked and rose. "What chess skills?"

Soft laughter issued from Lex, and Clark kept a close eye on him as he turned in the bed and slowly rose out of it. He was wearing a gray pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt that was much too large for him, having told the hospital in no uncertain terms that he wasn't going to be wearing their gowns.

Restraining himself, Clark carefully did not put out an arm for Lex to hold onto. The younger Luthor looked a little unsteady, but he moved with confidence, as always, and Clark knew he wouldn't appreciate any help until he was ready to ask for it. "You're not that bad, Clark."

Clark lifted an eyebrow. "Really?"

Lex laughed again. "Really." The eyebrow lifted again, this time higher, and Lex retracted his statement. "Well, okay, maybe you are that bad, but you'll get better. You've only been playing for a few weeks."

"That I'll believe." Clark opened the door and held it for his lover, then they made their way slowly to the fun room. The unsteadiness in Lex's gait was barely noticeable, and Clark suspected that to anyone else, the Luthor would look like he was taking a slow, comfortable amble, instead of a stiff, slow walk.

The fun room was only a few doors away, which was good, because Clark wasn't sure Lex was up to walking longer, no matter how good a face he put on. Predictably, however, they ran into Lex's doctor during the fifteen steps they were breaking protocol, and she was not happy.

"Mr. Luthor!" The tone was definitely peeved.

Lex groaned softly, and Clark smirked as his lover's annoyance flashed briefly across his face, before being composed into the polite mask that all Luthors wore when dealing with the public. "Dr. Devon," he greeted his physician, coolly but cordially.

"Mr. Luthor, you are not supposed to be out of bed! And you most certainly are not supposed to be walking around!"

"I apologize. I'm afraid my friend and I were a little bored. We're only going to the recreation room." Lex refused to call it the fun room, apparently not satisfied with the sophistication, or lack thereof, of the term.

"Then you may ride in a wheelchair!"

Lex's face twisted a little, and Clark wanted to laugh. The day someone got Lex Luthor into a wheelchair, he wanted to see it. "I'm afraid I don't use wheelchairs, doctor."

The doctor didn't back off, something that Clark decided he liked about her. Having a Luthor in one's care tended to make one back off rather easily, the combination of the intimidation of the name and the stubbornness of the family being rather overwhelming. "You do now," she informed him hotly.

Clark couldn't help it. The edge of his mouth turned up. But Lex looked like he was getting a little steamed, and the doctor was furious. "Um... maybe we should continue this somewhere else?" He suggested.

There was a break in the arguing, if one could call Lex's polite, but stubborn refusals part of an argument, and Dr. Devon seemed to realize that standing in the middle of a hallway, arguing, probably wasn't good for Lex's health, either. "Let's get you to the fun room, then," she conceded, trying to take Lex's elbow.

Lex skillfully evaded her grasp, which left him pressed rather closer to Clark than was appropriate, were they just friends, but he was willing to give up that bit of the charade to avoid being touched by a stranger. "Certainly."

The doctor glared a little at her troublesome patient, but accompanied them to the fun room and made sure Lex was sitting down before disappearing again without a word. A few moments later, just as Lex and Clark were setting up the chess board, she reappeared pushing a wheelchair. "For when you leave," she told them shortly, and Clark hid a grin behind his hand as Lex glared back at her just as vehemently.

Lex, amazingly, managed to keep his mouth shut until the doctor left, then gave the wheelchair a swift kick, sending it into the nearest wall with a slight thunk. "I will not be seen a wheelchair!" He steamed.

Clark smirked. "Well, I could always carry you."

"Not helping," Lex snapped.

Aware that Lex really was upset, and more with the idea of losing the independence of walking than with the anticipated mortification of being seen in a wheelchair, Clark smoothed away all traces of humor on his face. "Sorry."

Lex sighed, but didn't respond. Clark reached out and started setting up the chess board again, and silently, his lover helped.

After an almost entirely silent chess game, Clark put a hand on Lex's as discreetly as he could, and leaned in a little. "You want to leave?" he murmured.

Lex shook his head. "No. I'm fine." He didn't look fine, though. He looked stiff, annoyed, and preoccupied.

"Lex, c'mon, let's go back to your room."

"I'm not getting in the damn thing." The way Lex spit out the word was hilarious, and Clark could barely keep himself from cracking up, but somehow, he managed.

"You don't have to," Clark promised, and something seemed to click in Lex's brain. Clark could see the wheels turning, going I am a Luthor, and nobody gets to tell me what to do, and he smirked, then quickly sobered as Lex rose.

They made their way back to Lex's room, miraculously avoiding Dr. Devon on the way. Clark sighed when they closed the door and were home-free, and Lex, his good spirits restored, smirked. "She isn't that scary, Clark."

Clark just shook his head. "Maybe not for you. You deal with all sorts of scary people. Me? The scariest person I know is my mom."

"Your mom is just about the scariest person I know, too," Lex deadpanned.

Laughing, Clark flung himself down on the chair next to the bed. Lex made a face, and patted the mattress next to him. "I thought we'd agreed you weren't going to be sitting on that awful thing anymore."

Clark raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Maybe you decided that, but I never heard about it!"

"Well, now you have, so get your ass off that horrible plastic thing and into this horrible hard bed."

Clark laughed again and pressed a kiss to Lex's temple as he slid into bed beside his lover. Lex returned the kiss with one of his own on Clark's cheek, and then yawned a little.

"Tired?"

"It's not even lunch."

Clark rolled his eyes. "That doesn't answer the question."

"I refuse to take a nap before it's even lunchtime."

"Lex, I realize it might be hard to accept, but just because you normally run on five hours of sleep does not mean you can do it now."

The billionaire brushed another kiss to Clark's cheek. "Mother hen."

"Mother hen with a very valid point," he pressed.

This time, Lex rolled his eyes. "Clark, I'm not going to sleep now." It was his 'this is the end of it' tone of voice, and anyone except Clark would have given up instantly.

Clark, however, twisted himself onto his side a little, wrapped his arms around Lex, and levered them both gently onto the mattress. "I'm going to nap, Lex. And you can just rest." He closed his eyes.

"I can't get to the computer from here, Clark." Lex's words were disagreeable, but a little muffled, because Lex himself was snuggled pretty close into Clark's chest.

"That's the idea."

"You're hindering the operation of LexCorp, you know."

"I'm helping the recovery of Lex, thank you very much." Clark opened his eyes briefly and hugged Lex to himself. "Just rest."

Five minutes later, they were both fast asleep.

[Prologue] [Sleepy] [Scared] [Bloody] [Stay] [Appetite] [Reality] [Fine] [Know] [Normality] [Chloe] [Bored]

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