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A Summer's Day Author: I. The summer before Clark's senior year was a perfect one. Not too much rain and not too little, and a hot but not sweltering July that coaxed all sorts of crops easily from the ground. His father said they were on track for the best yield he'd had in a decade, and his mother spoke excitedly about profits. So for his eighteenth birthday, they'd spent more than usual on his gift, and he got the digital camera he'd been hinting hopefully at for months. It didn't have all the features the ones they had in school did, but it was exactly what he'd wanted, and he couldn't wait to try it out. "Lex! Hey, Lex!" He'd sped through his chores even faster than usual so he could run over to the mansion. Lex was as always overdressed for the weather, his dark slacks and long-sleeved shirt incongruous at the poolside table, and sweat glistened on his scalp even under the shade of the table's broad white umbrella. "Clark." Lex looked up from his iced tea and printouts with a smile. Lex didn't smile much at all, and lately Clark had noticed that there was one smile Lex never gave to anyone but him. "Geez, Lex," he grinned back, "how can you be at a pool on the hottest day of the summer and just sit there?" He shook his head as he placed his precious gift on the table for safekeeping. "Let me show you how it's done." He was aware of Lex's eyes on him as he kicked off his shoes and dove into the cool chlorinated water, as he swam a slow lap, as he pulled himself out, soaking wet, with his jeans and T-shirt clinging uncomfortably to his body. He thought Lex's look should have made him uncomfortable too, but it made him feel good in ways in he couldn't explain. "I'll have to keep that in mind," Lex said, and his voice sounded odd. "I'm about to have lunch; care to join me?" Clark nodded, and pulled a chair away from the table so he could sit near Lex but still be in the sun. "See my new camera?" "I did," Lex said. "Birthday present?" Clark nodded. "I still haven't decided on your gift." "You don't have to get me anything, Lex." "I know. But I want to." Lex picked up his phone and pressed a series of keys without ever taking his eyes off of Clark. "Margaret? That'll be two for lunch, please." Their conversation continued through the meal of complicated sandwiches and Cokes, discussing the farm, the town: everything and nothing at all. Lex's eyes lingered at times on Clark's lips, or his hands, and every time Lex pulled his eyes away Clark felt the tear. He wanted Lex to look at him like this forever. "Why don't we try out my camera?" he asked after the meal had been cleared away. "It's got a timer." They put the camera at the far end of the table, using Lex's stack of paper and a brick from the garden beneath it for height. Clark checked the focus, then went back to pull his chair right up next to Lex's. Their elbows touched, and he wondered how something so small could feel so electric. "Smile, Clark," Lex said, and then the flash went off. Clark jumped up to grab the camera and see the picture. Lex smirked up from the digital screen, and Clark smiled at the Lex sitting across from him. "You look happy." "Do I?" Lex's expression was strange, and Clark's insides felt less solid than they'd been just a few minutes before. "Yeah," Clark said. He couldn't manage much more than a whisper. "I want you to be happy, Lex." He took Lex's hand and laced their fingers together. "Really." "Yeah?" Lex said softly Clark had only been able to nod in response; he hoped his eyes said all the things he couldn't find the words for. They must have, because Lex had leaned in impossibly close and kissed him. Just lips brushing lightly against his own, but Clark had gasped and the kiss had deepened. Clark had kissed plenty of girls already, and sometimes at night he lay awake thinking about those kisses, but nothing had prepared him for this. Lex's mouth was hot and deep, and his tongue was insistent, and Clark felt devoured and devouring all at once. "*Lex*," he breathed, pulling him even closer. Lex pulled the camera out of Clark's grip as he broke the kiss. He ran a hand through Clark's hair, pushing it back, and Clark leaned into the touch, savoring the electricity it sent down his spine. Lex smiled again: not the intense private smile of before but an unguarded one Clark hadn't seen before. "More lovely," he said, tracing a finger across Clark's cheek, "and more temperate." Clark pulled him back for another kiss, but after a moment Lex pulled away again. Before Clark could protest, he'd aimed the camera at Clark's face and pressed the button. Clark tried to see it, but Lex put the camera down on the table and leaned in for another kiss, and then nothing else mattered. "I want copies of those, you know," he whispered, and the feel of Lex's breath against his ear made Clark shiver. II. "Do you need a photographer for that City Hall thing today?" Clark shook his head regretfully. "Sorry, Jimmy. They already assigned Hennessey to the job." "Hey, no prob." Jimmy struggled to hide his disappointment, and Clark couldn't help liking the kid even better for that. It was hard starting out at the Planet -- he'd been in Jimmy's shoes himself not so long before, and he admired the boy's perseverance. "I guess since he worked with you on the LuthorCorp story..." "What does that have to do with it?" Clark frowned. Now it was Jimmy's turn to look confused. "Well, the mayor's gonna announce that Lex Luthor's chairing the redevelopment commission; it got leaked yesterday." "It did?" Clark had spent most of the previous day working on a story about the City Council budget negotiations and battling a forest fire in Oregon, but he still wasn't sure how he'd missed the news. He always read the stories about Lex, always knew where he was headed or what silicone blonde he had on his arm that week. He knew that he shouldn't, but he still hoped. He still cared. When Perry White had given Clark a lead on possible corruption at LuthorCorp, his heart had jumped. Not just a big story on his own, a vote of confidence from the boss, but a chance to repay Lionel a little for all the harm he'd done over the years. For the harm he'd done to Lex. And, to be honest, he had fantasies of Lex knocking on his door with a bouquet of white roses and a copy of Clark's big exposé, to congratulate Clark on his coup and ask him to come home. He'd be so good to Lex this time. He knew he could be. But things hadn't gone the way he'd hoped. He'd gotten the story all right; he'd scented out a trail that led all the way to the CEO's office, and even though he wasn't the journalist who found the so-called smoking gun, when he saw LuthorCorp in ruins on the front pages of the world's papers, he felt the same satisfaction in a job well done that he felt when he rescued a boatload of people or stopped a speeding train. But Lex just seemed to get further and further away. The first time he'd stood up at a press briefing and said, "Clark Kent, Daily Planet," the look in Lex's eyes had made his heart jump into his throat, and he'd stammered out the rest of the question blushing furiously. That night, he'd flown loop-de-loops over the Atlantic. But the next time Lex spoke to the press, he didn't even call on Clark, though he took questions from both of Metropolis's other papers. Calls to Lex's office for interviews were ignored. Calls asking for statements were returned by a publicist. Every time Clark shouted unanswered questions from behind a velvet rope at a charity function, he could feel Lex slipping just a little further out of his reach. He managed, once, to get close enough to touch. There was a black-tie gala in support of a childhood cancer research foundation, and Clark knew the associate development director; although he'd only gone out with John for a couple of months, he still managed to score a ticket to the event in two phone calls. He watched Lex until he walked away from the main crush of people, and then he made his move. "Why won't you answer my calls?" Lex turned to face him, his face blank and contained. "I have nothing to say to the press at the current time. If you want a statement you can contact my publicist." "You know what I want, Lex." His heart was pounding in his chest and his blood was loud in his ears. "I think this conversation is over." Lex turned away again to go, and Clark grabbed him by the arm, desperately trying to remember to be gentle. "Please, Lex. Just... *please*." Lex pulled away again. "'Every fair from fair sometime declines,' Clark," he said. "You know that already." It took Clark a minute to place the quotation, but when he did, he felt gut-punched. He'd left the party and spent the rest of the night in his parents' barn in Smallville, remembering a happier time, and wishing that things could be different. "Well, maybe Perry won't want me to cover it, if it's Luthor," he said now to Jimmy. "I'll take you along if I get put on something else." The kid's excited smile almost made it all right. III. It was an unusually cold day in early winter, raked by the harsh prairie wind that his father always said he could feel in his bones. Clark couldn't feel it at all, but he buttoned up his black wool coat to blend in with the Monday morning crowd. He'd had a rough night, too many people he was too late to save crowding his dreams, and he'd decided to walk to work to clear his head. It was working -- the shapeless dread he'd felt when he awoke was being replaced by worries about when he could pick up his dry-cleaning and the twenty bucks Pete still owed him. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't see the woman in front of him stop at a newsstand until it was almost too late. He apologized, stumbling back a few steps to give her room, and when he looked up again, he found himself staring into the past. The same grey-blue eyes he'd once looked into for hours now stared challengingly out at the world from the cover of Time. Lex was older now, and his face was subtly different with age, but the gaze was still the same, and Clark could almost believe he was looking directly at the man himself. He didn't know why no one had told him about this -- he knew the Time regional reporter in Metropolis, and his name was still mentioned when the coverage of the collapse of LuthorCorp and LexCorp's subsequent rise was discussed. But that had been a while ago already, and people moved on, even if Clark sometimes had trouble with it. He pulled out his wallet and passed the old man behind the newsstand counter four dollars. When the old man handed him a fresh copy of the magazine in exchange, he cradled it almost reverently in his hands; it took a sharp "Ex*cuse* me" in his ear before he realized that there were people waiting to pay for their morning papers behind him. He muttered an apology and stepped away, carefully storing the magazine in his briefcase before starting to walk again. It wasn't until he got to his desk in the newsroom, checked his messages and e-mail, and guaranteed that no one needed him and he'd be left alone, that he let himself open the magazine. It was the standard profile, made fresh by the rumors of Lex's political ambitions: the title was "Could This Man Be President?" and Clark smiled at the thought of it. Scattered among the paragraphs were pictures of Lex: one as a boy, with both his parents, and several more from the course of his professional and public life. Lex in Metropolis. Lex at a factory somewhere in Asia. Lex with some vapid-looking model in Aspen. Lex at a table behind the mansion in Smallville, a hundred years ago. Clark's breath caught. That was his picture, the one he'd taken with the camera his parents were so happy to be able to give him. The one that changed everything. He could see the afternoon so clearly in his mind's eye even now: the look in Lex's eye that he hadn't known enough to recognize as desire, the taste of Margaret's sandwiches on crusty sourdough bread, the dizzy rush of pleasure. All those things were there in the picture, along with all the crushed hopes and broken promises that still lay ahead. But no one else who saw the photo in the magazine could even guess at that, because he'd been cut out. The image had been cropped to make it look like Lex had been alone. And maybe, Clark thought, his eyes stinging, he would prefer it if he had been. Suddenly the newsroom was too loud, too bright, and he had to get away. He lurched towards the bathroom and locked himself into a stall. Alone in the quiet, he rested his head against the cool metal divider. Part of him wanted to believe that Lex had given Time that picture because it made him think of better times. Of being young and happy. Part of him wanted to believe that Lex had just let the reporters go through his old photo albums and pick an image themselves, and it was all just an odd coincidence. But he knew that Lex would never cede control of his image to anyone, and that left him with only two things: Lex had kept the picture. And he had cut Clark out of it -- just as surely as he'd cut Clark out of everything else. Clark was surprised at how much that thought hurt him. He wondered if he would ever stop being surprised by how much he still missed Lex. He wondered if he would ever stop missing Lex at all. When he had himself a bit more under control, he washed his face with cool water, dried his hands, and went into Perry's office. "I don't really feel well. Could I take off after lunch? I don't have anything for tomorrow." Clark nodded gratefully and went back to his desk to shut down his computer. He almost threw the magazine away, but at the last minute he tossed it back in his old leather briefcase, no longer caring if it was damaged. Then he got on the MART train home. By the time he walked into his tiny apartment, he was already feeling a little more like himself. The uneventful ride home, the homeless woman he'd helped on the way from the station, all these things helped ground him again in his daily life. And it was a good life, mostly: friends, family, work, getting to help people. Lovers, too, if no one he'd ever cared for the way he cared for Lex. No one he'd loved. And it wasn't like anything had really changed since this morning, he reminded himself. Lex wasn't any more gone now than he'd been when Clark woke up. Wasn't any more gone than he'd been since Clark's junior year of college. It would be all right. He sighed, dropping down onto the old plaid sofa, and looked down at his briefcase. He struggled with the decision for a moment, but it was really no contest: he kept the large plastic bin under the coffee table, always within reach, for a reason. The bin held three photo albums. The first two had pictures of his parents, his friends, his childhood; his whole life in Smallville, further back than he could even remember. But the third, the one he kept a the bottom of the box so no one would spot it accidentally, that was the one he wanted today. He flipped to a blank page and reached back into his briefcase for the copy of Time. The cover was unmarred, and Lex's eyes seemed to glow in the dim natural light. Pulling a pair of scissors out of the box, Clark went to work on the magazine, and snipped until every word of the article on Lex was extracted. He expertly arranged the clippings along three pages of the album, admiring some of the quotes from Lex's business associates and trying not to look at the picture from Smallville. When he was done, he flipped back through the earlier pages, traveling backwards in time. Articles about Lex's business triumphs. His own stories on Lionel's fall. Pictures from long ago. And at the front of the book, photos from a perfect July day: two friends smiling at a new camera like they would always be happy, and a dark-haired boy in a tight close-up, lust-stunned and staring. Lex had given him this album for his eighteenth birthday, and placed those two first pictures there himself. He'd written an inscription on the inside front cover: black ink, long-ago smudged and lightened by Clark's fingers tracing over the words. "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, Yours, Lex. *His.* The bitter grief of earlier was back, like a too-strong grip on his chest. He closed his eyes against the pain, swallowing hard, and wished it could be summer again. end --- All quotations from Shakespeare's sonnet 18: Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to their owners/creators/copyright holders. This fan-written fiction intends no infringement on any copyrights. |
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