Evil Model Cars

Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville.

Note: Takes place sometime in Season 5. Because you know, Lex didn't actually bother to tell Clark to stop coming over until sometime in Season 6 so as far as I'm concerned this kind of thing happened all the time.

It had been a full ten seconds since Clark had walked into Lex's study and not only did he not look particularly angry but he hadn't started flinging accusations around. He was probably just bored then. That was okay. If he started getting too annoying, Lex could just get him to leave indignantly by asking how exactly he had managed to come back from the dead the week before.

"What are you doing?" Clark asked finally.

Lex looked down at his desk. Usually he had papers on it or was on the phone when Clark came in but today he had decided to take a break and work on one of his sadly neglected hobbies. No longer being friends with Clark and therefore being immediately written off by everyone he had used to talk to besides Lana had a way of really freeing up his time.

"I'm building a model car," he explained.

For some reason, Clark seemed to take that as an invitation to come right in and sit down in the chair on the opposite side of the desk. He peered closely at the car. "Is it an evil model car?"

"Why would I build an evil model car?" Lex asked blankly.

"That sounds an awful lot like you avoiding the question, Lex," Clark said suspiciously.

"Not that you would know anything about that," Lex muttered.

"That's right," Clark agreed serenely. "I have absolutely nothing to hide and thus no reason to avoid questions."

"Oh really?" Lex drawled. "What about last week when you got sh-"

"Stop trying to change the subject," Clark interrupted, quickly changing the subject himself. "Is it an evil model car or not?"

"How in the world would you even be able to tell if a model car was evil?" Lex demanded.

Clark shrugged. "I'm sure I wouldn't know, not being evil myself or an expert on model cars."

"And what makes you think that I'm such an expert?" Lex inquired.

Clark blinked. "Oh, I suppose you could be one, couldn't you?" he asked innocently.

Lex rolled his eyes. "Tragically, I don't have the faintest idea how you'd go about figuring something like that out but for the record I don't actually believe that it's possible to have an evil model car."

"You know, it's always the evil ones who start going on about how there is no good or evil," Clark said conversationally. "Have you ever noticed that?"

"No but I have noticed that it's always the annoying ones who won't shut up about good and evil," Lex countered neatly.

"Can't you get a feeling on whether you think the car is good or evil?" Clark implored.

"Am I supposed to be psychic now?" Lex asked rhetorically. "I'm sure if you're willing to wait long enough, a meteor mutant with just that power will show up and in between it trying to kill everyone in sight you can ask it about my car."

"It's your car," Clark pointed out. "So I figured if anyone would know, you would."

Lex sighed. "If it puts your mind at ease, I don't feel that the car is evil."

"But you don't even believe in good or evil so that must be taken with a grain of salt," Clark said solemnly.

"Now you're just twisting my words," Lex complained. "Are you planning on going into journalism or something?"

Clark looked offended. "Low blow."

"Most people wouldn't take being asked about their major as an insult," Lex pointed out dryly.

"You said that the only good reporter is a bribable reporter," Clark replied.

Lex's eyebrows shot up. "Really? In front of you? That was careless."

"That's kind of an evil position to take," Clark declared.

Lex tilted his head. "I'd go with 'morally dubious' and I only feel that way because I like the ability to squash negative stories about me that people don't need to know about."

"Like about your evil activities?" Clark asked suspiciously.

"Like about my love life or my…troubled past," Lex corrected. "Fortunately for you I knew some very bribable reporters or else you might have learned all about our sordid trysts on the front page of the Inquirer at least half a dozen times."

Clark looked shocked. "But we never had any sordid trysts!"

"Since this is Smallville, at first I thought that maybe it was a meteor thing that caused us to do that and then promptly forget all about it but then I remembered that those were reporters I was dealing with," Lex explained.

"Not all meteor mutants are evil, you know," Clark said suddenly.

"What?" Lex asked.

"You said that the next time you ran into a psychic meteor mutant you'd ask it about your car's evil-ness in between it killing people," Clark reminded him. "And I think that that's kind of profiling."

"Clark, statistically speaking meteor mutants go crazy shortly upon discovering their powers and start killing people," Lex pointed out.

"Not all of them!" Clark insisted. "What about Kyle? Or Cassandra?"

"What about Bob?" Lex countered. "Or that football coach? Greg? Ian? Eric? Tina? Justin? Sean? Sasha? Jake?"

"Okay, okay, there have been a lot of meteor mutants who have gone crazy and tried to kill people," Clark conceded. "But didn't you say something about your own accelerated healing?"

"I think I did," Lex agreed, nodding. "And recently you seem to have decided that I must be evil. Now who's profiling?"

"I am not!" Clark cried out, horrified.

"So is there any particular reason you think that my model car could be evil?" Lex asked, deciding to just bite the bullet.

Clark nodded, looking serious. "We must all choose where we stand in the epic battle against good and evil. There is no middle ground."

Clark sounded like Warrior Angel. For some reason, he was a lot less interested in the comic than he used to be. "Not even for inanimate objects?"

"Not even for them," Clark confirmed.

"Would it even make a difference if an inanimate object was evil?" Lex wanted to know. "I mean, how much harm could it do?"

Clark answered Lex's question with one of his own. "Have you ever seen Christine?"

"I'll do you one better," Lex replied. "I actually read it. And maybe you have a point about a full-sized car but this is a model car. It's far less capable of doing damage."

"It could hurl itself at people and really hurt them," Clark argued. "It might even take someone's eye out or try and choke them!"

"It's a little big for choking," Lex disagreed. "And if it were going to hit someone's eye then it would have to hurl itself from somewhere that the victim could see it and…you know what, I can't believe I'm even having this conversation."

"Neither can I," Clark said, shaking his head in disappointment. "Must you defend evil model cars?"

Lex decided not to dignify that with a response.

"Hey, have you named the car yet?" Clark wondered.

"Look, Clark, I know that you think I'm obsessed with my cars but I assure you that I haven't gotten to the point where I would name them," Lex promised tiredly.

"Au contraire, I happen to think that it's rude not to name your cars. We named our truck 'Old Faithful'," Clark revealed.

So strange to hear French coming out of Clark's mouth. "What do you suggest I name my model car then?"

"Christine," Clark replied promptly.

"Are you trying to turn her evil or something?" Lex demanded.

"Lex, I think that assuming that any car with the name Christine must be evil is profiling," Clark said reprovingly.

"You're the one who just brought up that movie," Lex pointed out.

"I don't see your point," Clark said blankly. "Hey, what kind of a car is that anyway?"

"It's a Porsche," Lex replied, deciding it wasn't worth it to pursue that line of argument.

"Like the one that you ran me ov-I mean, absolutely didn't hit me with?" Clark demanded angrily.

"Not everything is about you, Clark," Lex said, knowing that he would get absolutely nowhere by pointing out that Clark had practically admitted that Lex had run him over the first time they met. In fact, with how things currently stood Clark might accuse him of trying to assassinate him or something.

Clark's snort showed what he thought about that.

"It's not!" Lex insisted.

"That claim was a lot more credible before I saw your creepy stalker room," Clark said bluntly.

He was never going to live that one down, was he? That situation probably would have been salvageable if it hadn't been for the giant photo of Clark. "It wasn't a creepy stalker room."

"I thought you said you weren't going to investigate me anymore!" Clark cried out, sounding hurt.

"I thought you had decided that now that we're no longer friends I'm completely evil and therefore aren't actually required to keep any such promises," Lex said pointedly.

"It's still not nice," Clark sniffed.

Lex rolled his eyes. "Clark, you can't decide I'm evil and then expect me to be nice. It doesn't work that way."

"I always hope for the best," Clark said nobly. "Even if I get disappointed time and time again."

He wasn't the only one. He'd probably be less let down by Clark if he stopped having so much faith in him. "I wasn't investigating you anyway."

"Then why do you have a make-shift bridge?" Clark asked, poking at said bridge.

"Clark, those are my pens," Lex corrected him.

"Oh," Clark said, sounding sheepish. "Why didn't you just say so?" His stomach rumbled loudly but he looked like he was in no hurry to leave.

Lex sighed. "Will you be staying for dinner?"

"That depends," Clark replied. "What are you having?"

"Is pizza alright?" Lex asked, reaching for the phone.

"Is it evil pizza?" Clark asked suspiciously.

Review Please!