Archive of Our Own

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This is the fifth of the unrelated "Beautiful Garbage Vignettes".

For Beth, and Livia, and Lucy who's a sun burning brightly.

And Under Stars
(Androgyny)
by Brighid

His mother's hand upon his shoulder pulls him from the clinging grasp of dreams, but cannot dispel the half-formed ghosts that haunt him the rest of the day. Not even his father's sharp looks over breakfast or later, Chloe's exasperated "Clark!" as he drifts in and out of Math can pull him fully into the world.

At lunch he slips sideways, disappears, a power he cultivated long before he ever hit adolescence. He finds his way to the library, hides amidst the stacks with a dog-eared book on dream interpretation. He learns that flying dreams are probably about sex, and stifles a laugh even as he wonders what it means, then, that he has woken up actually flying more than once.

The book is no help at all, can make no sense of the fragments that linger in the daylight. He remembers ... hands. Long, tapered fingers. And a ...mouth. The fingers touch him, and he can feel them on him, like ghosts, can feel a whisper against his ear, his mouth; all the hairs stand on his body and he flushes hotly in between the New Age and the Christian philosophy and there are no answers here, after all.

It would be easier if the dream were purely sexual, if it were animal want. Farm boys watch cattle and horses and dogs and it's all just ... biology. Not something you talk about, but not particularly unsettling. He understands that; he understands, too, the human corollary: about wet dreams, about waking up aching or sticky. But these dreams lack that simplicity, that clarity of flesh and bone. They are ... more. The ache is low in his gut, in his chest, in his lungs when he tries to breathe. The mouth whispers promises just past his hearing, even hearing such as his ... the hands hold him, hold him up, hold him close, loose and strong and sure. Almost like a father's hands, like a mother's hands ... only sweeter, stranger by far.

He tucks the book back amongst its fellows, rests his forehead against his knees, tries to breathe, then slides sideways, out into the world. He watches everyone that passes, trying to piece together the mystery of his dreams, of his heart.

)0(

The dreams come and go. Some mornings he wakes up flying, giggles sleepily, almost tells his mother because he knows she'd giggle, too, and he likes to hear her laugh, even if it's a little bit at him.

Some mornings he wakes up, all uncomplicated animal instinct, requiring nothing more than a quick trip to get his sheets in the washer before he has to explain anything to his mother, even though he knows she knows because suddenly the stain remover is recommended especially for protein stains. It's an "oh, jeez, mom," thing, nothing more, and he rolls his eyes and pre-treats and goes out to chores.

But some mornings he wakes up haunted and aching in his chest, in his lungs, as though he's been pulled from the one place where there was air to breathe. He spends the day isolated, alienated, longing to feel some leap of recognition, something familiar in the curve of a smile, the touch of long fingers.

But it's not to be found in Chloe's waving hands or even, sadly, somehow inevitably, in Lana's soft, almost sympathetic smile. It's not anywhere at all and the year passes and he sleeps and wakes and dreams.

)0(

The inevitable winter party over holiday break comes, all bonfires and stolen beer and everybody who's anybody is there. He tries, he really tries but it's hard enough any other day, and today he woke up breathless and lonely and so he wanders back into town, not feeling winter on the outside at all, only on the inside, where it seems to have settled in for good.

A familiar car parked in front of the Beanery draws his attention, and he finds himself pulled into the warmth, into the comfort of ... well, shared solitudes, maybe.

Lex smiles when he sees him, a smile that reaches his eyes, and waves him over. He holds out his cup, makes Clark wrap his ungloved hands about it. Clark stares dumbly, where their fingers touch briefly, and these are the hands, and he looks up to the smile and there is the mouth and he takes a dry-mouthed gulp of the too-sweet coffee and before reason catches up with impulse asks, "Do you want to go home with me and look at the stars through my telescope?"

An agony of embarrassment grips him, and he finds himself wishing for the impossible, like maybe he could, oh god, fly around the world and reverse its spin and move back time just far enough that he doesn't sound like such a ... freak. But Lex is nodding and closing the book he was reading and gathering his coat. Clark lets the embarrassment slip away, and thinks of Lex, here, in the shabby chic of the Beanery, reading a well-thumbed copy of "The Crystal Cave", thinks of Lex choosing to be here instead of his castle, because ... well, it's a castle, not a home.

Lex drives carefully on the slippery roads, gets them safely home, goes on up to the loft while Clark makes up a Thermos of hot chocolate and grabs a handful of his mother's cookies. He finds Lex smiling, looking through the telescope, still aimed at Lana's front porch. Clark flushes, glad it isn't leveled at any more damning sights.

"And what constellation is that one, Clark?" Lex asks, all faux innocence, taking a cookie and a mug of steaming hot chocolate as Clark carefully tilts his telescope heavenward.

"You were young once, you take a guess," Clark responds drily, and Lex laughs around a mouthful of oatmeal raisin but it's friendly and doesn't really bother Clark at all. He starts focusing, choosing his spherical co-ordinates, and together they start breaking down the constellations of the winter sky.

Lex surprises him a little, knowing some of the stars, knowing most of the myths. They get lost in discussion, huddled on hay bales with an old sleeping bag thrown over their shoulders for warmth. Hot chocolate and cookies disappear, their breath grows frosty, but Lex does not leave, and when Clarke slides closer, he does not shift away, only shoots him an oblique look.

But when they reach Eridanus things grow stilted, awkward, and Clark understands, suddenly, that the story is what does it. Phaeton, too young, too mortal for the reigns of a god's chariot, falling to earth, to ignominy, to shame. High school English, after all, covers allusion and metaphor.

A silence stretches between them as Lex finishes the myth, and the wry twist of his mouth tells Clark that he, too, understands allusion and metaphor. "Is that what Smallville is to you? Eridanus? The place you fell to?" he asks at last, refusing to look away from Lex, refusing to drop his gaze.

Lex smiles, but it does not reach his eyes. "Clark, I am the master of crash and burn. Did it with drugs, did it with sex, did it with money, did it with all the wrong people in all the wrong places." He makes a banner headline gesture with his hands. "And every last bit of it made the headlines."

Clark reaches out, impulse again, touches the bitter smile, strokes it into a surprised 'o'. "It must be hard to be your father's son. And ... lonely." He knows this, recognizes it. He is not entirely his father's son, and that is hard, too, and lonely. It is something they share.

He can feel Lex's breath against his fingertips as he answers, and the tightness in his chest eases for the first time since he woke up in the morning, for the first time, he realizes, since he woke up that first morning. "There are ... certain expectations, that go with the name. I thought I could live up to them. I couldn't. I thought I could get around them. I couldn't. I'm just lucky I didn't get a literal thunderbolt up the ass." Lex does not move, and his words whisper along Clark's skin. He can smell chocolate and oatmeal and sweat and something that might just be longing on the older boy's skin.

Because fast cars and corporate logos and scandal sheets aside, Lex is still very much a boy. Sometimes, Clark realizes, he feels like the older one, the wiser one, because there are things he just understands, things he can see that Lex is still trying to fight his way around and through. He suspects that this moment is one of those things.

"You know, people expect ... all sorts of things," Clark says hesitantly, reaching for an analogy. "Doesn't make it right or true. Five hundred years ago, they'd have smashed a telescope, rather than looking at the stars and seeing that they're ... suns." And then he leans in, and he kisses Lex, tastes the mouth that's been haunting him for weeks, for months. Lex sighs his name and opens to him and Lex's hands, those hands, they slide through his hair, over his shoulders, clasp around his back, loose and strong and sure. It's oddly comforting, the embrace, a caress like a father's touch, like a mother's touch, only sweeter, stranger.

He takes a deep, gasping breath against Lex's mouth, slides his hands up and under wool coat and wool sweater to where the skin is warm and just a little slick and it's ... sweet and strange and it burns in him like a galaxy full of suns.

)0(

End